Was Irenaeus Fluent in Aramaic?

[Secret Alias]

I receive lots of emails. Here's one from a documentary producer

Hi there,

Was Ireneus fluent in Aramaic?

If so, he quotes Daniel 12:3. Could he have written that in Aramaic in his original writings?
Would he have read the Book of Daniel in Aramaic?

[andrewcriddle]

I'm a little puzzled here. In our standard text of Daniel 2:4-7:28 are in Aramaic the rest is in Hebrew. It is quite possible that all Daniel was originally Aramaic but the mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic is much older than Irenaeus, (it is found in the Qumran texts), and it is unlikely that Irenaeus had access to an Aramaic version of Daniel 12.

It is possible that it is being suggested that Irenaeus used the Peshitta of Daniel but I regard this as also unlikely.

Andrew Criddle

[DCHindley]

I'm a little puzzled here. In our standard text of Daniel 2:4-7:28 are in Aramaic the rest is in Hebrew. It is quite possible that all Daniel was originally Aramaic but the mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic is much older than Irenaeus, (it is found in the Qumran texts), and it is unlikely that Irenaeus had access to an Aramaic version of Daniel 12.

It is possible that it is being suggested that Irenaeus used the Peshitta of Daniel but I regard this as also unlikely.

Andrew,

Secret's "Documentary Producer" was possibly aware that Irenaeus came from Smyrna in Asia Minor, where Aramaic was the every day and official/business language for centuries before the Greeks established their dominance.

While the official and business language changed to Koine Greek since the time of Alexander the Great, there may have remained a strong interest in Aramaic literature among the elites, and an even more common wide use of it among the agrarian classes. Among Greek speaking retainers in the towns and cities, they seemed to have quickly lost interest in back country Aramaic of their roots/youth in preference for mastering Greek, which is what will open up opportunities for social advancement and/or business opportunities.

Then there is this thing recently that proposes that Jesus himself spoke Aramaic and that the sources who recorded his sayings and doings may have first written them in Aramaic, and then the authors of the NT Gospels and Acts translated it into Greek, or at least used sources that had already done so if the final editors of the Gospels/Acts were not themselves fluent in Aramaic. If they remembered any Aramaic, it was colloquial usage at home or the villages.

My mom grew up in a family where her parents, her mother especially, spoke both English and a German dialect (they called it "Pennsylvania Dutch" and is very similar to Old Order Amish/Mennonite dialects who hear Luther's Old-High German Bible read at 4 hour long worship services held in member's barns). My Grandparents on my mom's side were Lutherans, so they might also have heard the Old-High-German Luther Bible at church (no barns for them hoidy-toidy Lutherans).

However, the German of her parents and some of the farm hands on their dairy farm (which she spoke a little bit at home but never at school) was not her primary language, so she doesn't remember but a few words of it now.

DCH

[Charles Wilson]

As in, "Throw the horse over the fence some hay."

[Stuart]

Doubtful, but in truth impossible to know, we can only speculate.

We have some writings penned in his name, in Greek, although these are probably anything but from a single writer, and they may not have been penned by him (several references to events long after his supposed lifetime should have ended ... unless he lived to 250 or so -- such as he would have to be to weigh in on the debate of Rome's primacy, which only became an issue with the Athanasius affair). There is not much Aramaic there to speak of in them either.

In Irenaeus, we are dealing with his legend and the pseudonymous writings in attributed to him, as we really don't have the signatures. If any of those writings have an authentic core, that has yet to be explored, as indeed there has to date been little effort explaining or even examining forensically his clear stances on issues of that only became important in the late 3rd or 4th centuries.

In the light of the larger questions of authenticity, it's extremely presumptive to say anything about what languages he spoke. We can only report what church history says about his legend, for whatever that is worth.

[DCHindley]

As in, "Throw the horse over the fence some hay."

Yes. Then there was "wash disher" for the dish washer (meaning gramma or us kids at the sink) after the (literally) gut-busting stuffed pig's stomach dinner. <real memories>

Did you ever hear Professor Herman F. Schnitzel's ‎"Pennsylvania Dutch Spoken Here Abouts" 45 rpm record, 1961? My step Grandad used to play his records (usually colored red, green or blue, which was unusual) for us kids (despite the raunchy humor) and we'd laugh to tears. Always loved that accent.

DCH

[Charles Wilson]

https://www.amazon.com/Pennsylvania-Dut ... B000TQGV62